Archive | February, 2012

I’ve had a nervous stomach since last Wednesday when I realized this conference was only a little over a week away. Now it’s only a couple of days. Eeep!

Been hitting the Chamomile Tea pretty hard to calm the ole stomach….

Reason I’m nervous? Not only is it my first writer’s conference, but I’ll be pitching to three agents. Never done it before. For the non-writers who might be reading this, I basically have about 8 minutes to verbally infuse that agent with a hot, burning need to read my manuscript. Can I say ‘Eeep’ again?

They say you should memorize about 3 to 4 sentences to pitch and that the agent will ask questions. Is that about right?

So I thought I’d indulge myself by running several by y’all. They say it also needs to sound conversational… So here it goes, FWIW:

A) MUST LOVE BREECHES is a completed 98,000 word time-travel romance. When a thoroughly modern American girl finds herself stranded in 1834 London, she must find a way home while navigating the pitfalls of London society, resisting her attraction to a hunky lord, and ultimately having to decide when her true home lies.

or:

B) MUST LOVE BREECHES is a completed 98,000 word time-travel romance. It’s about a quirky modern American who has finally met the man of her dreams. There’s only one problem–he lives in 1834. She has sworn off ever doing the follow-the-boyfriend move again. But when she’s accidentally transported to 1834 London, she has a hard time resisting the hunky lord known as the Vicious Viscount. She wants to find the silver case that transported her through time so she can return to her carefully crafted life in the present, but when he asks her to pose as his fiancée for his own scheme of revenge, she ultimately has to decide when her true home lies. One of the fun things about it, besides the yummy hero, is that she is befriended by Ada Byron, Lord Byron’s daughter, and meets Charles Babbage, the inventor of the Difference Engine. I’ve tried for a light, humorous touch, while also exploring aspects of 1830s London that’s not typical: the scientific.

I know mentioning other characters in a pitch is usually bad, but the thing is, Ada Byron Lovelace is a major secondary character. She is one of the “high concept” things about the book. Whenever I mention she’s in it to someone who asks me what my book is about, they perk up with that bit. Also, it’s timely–Steve Job’s biographer’s next subject will be her. Folks into steampunk love Lovelace and Babbage.

I’ve tried to get my goal, motivation and conflict in each, my theme, and (B) also includes the Act One turning point.

I see (A) as my elevator/cocktail bar pitch and (B) as my actual pitch? Will I have enough time for B?

Some resources I found, if you’re faced with doing a verbal pitch session soon:

I’ve done my research on the agents, now I just need to nail down my pitch and memorize it. I’m also going into it with the attitude that the agent will know I’m nervous, it’s to be expected. Hopefully that will make me less nervous. I’m going to go in positive…

How about you? Do you have any advice? Are you going to the conference? Do you have any funny pitch stories to share?

Those of you who know me well may wonder why I haven’t featured Geek God Nathan Fillion before. Well, he was one of the first I looked up when I thought of this weekly feature, but I couldn’t find a picture of him holding a book other than a Richard Castle book.
Fortunately my kick-a$$, ninja searching skills have improved since, and I was able to find these lovelies for you. Also, I will try my darndest not to go all fan-girrl. Okay, deep breath.

For those living under a rock who don’t know who he is, he played Capt. Malcolm Reynolds in the cult TV show Firefly. As you might have noticed from my blog’s logline, I’m a huge Browncoat (fan base’s name). I’m one of the small legion of fans that watched the TV show when it aired. Of course, I followed this charming and talented actor’s career since. Currently, he plays mystery/crime writer Richard Castle on the ABC hit TV show Castle. He’s also the only Hunk Who Reads whom I’ve had the pleasure of meeting. I used to be the organizer of the annual charity screening of Serenity for the city of Atlanta, part of the global Can’t Stop the Serenity event, and one year at Dragon*Con, he was gracious enough to donate and sign two autographed photos (I’d only asked for one) for the silent auction. He was every bit as friendly and charming as you’ve imagined.

In researching his reading tastes and habits, I think I’ve hit upon why it’s so difficult to find pictures of famous men reading when I know they read–they probably own eReaders! It makes sense, traveling as much as they do. But, makes it dang hard to find snapshots. This is the case with Fillion; he’s a big fan of the Kindle and even tweeted someone to buy one to save money and trees.

He must have read through the series pretty quickly, because then in October he tweeted the following, which made me giggle when I first saw it then, and still does:

Fillion’s parents were English teachers and instilled in him the importance of literacy and a love of books. When his friend PJ Haarsma published his first book and heard that kids wanted it in their libraries but librarians couldn’t afford it, Fillion and Haarsma founded (clutch your pearls, girls) the non-profit organization Kids Need to Read (KNTR) in 2007. The Foundation encourages literacy and social responsibility through its gifts of inspiring books to schools, libraries and literacy programs serving disadvantaged children.

Last October, he tweeted a promo for KNTR where if you purchased the anthology Every Witch Way But Wicked, proceeds would benefit KNTR. (Just a note here: I think this was a temporary promo for Halloween). And in true Browncoat fashion, a group of fans have been holding fundraisers for KNTR since 2010. In this one poverty-stricken elementary school in Chicago, the funds were used to purchase books, and the kids drew their own book covers of their favorites.

The American Library Association featured him in their READ poster program: “We’re thrilled to have Nathan Fillion on our latest READ poster. He’s shown great dedication to engaging young readers with exciting books,” said Rachel Johnson, director of ALA Graphics. “Word of the poster’s debut traveled fast, and members, particularly YA librarians, are clamoring for it.”

UPDATE: Memory-like-a-steel-trap commenter ‘rre’ dug up some dragon*con footage from 2008 where someone from the audience brought up KNTR and asked each panelist to name their favorite book. Quick-witted Fillion used the opportunity to say Of Mice and Men:

“It goes to show that as great as it his to have a goofy, comically lovable character in a story, they inevitably have to die,” and looks pointedly at Alan, making allusions to Wash’s death [Tudyk’s character in the movie Firefly/Serenity].

Here’s the video:

video cuts off in the middle of his discussion of the book, so here’s the rest:

Firefly fans might be interested in the short series of blog posts I did back in the fall that featured writing lessons from the show, called Firefly Friday.

So that’s this month’s Hunk Who Reads. If you like these articles, please comment. They’re fun to write, but are time-consuming — on that note, if you run across any photos of hunks reading, please let me know.

Like this:

Today is #sixsunday where writers share six sentences from their work. I’ll share a snippet from my time-travel romance WIP tentatively titled MUST LOVE BREECHES.

Here’s my new pitch/logline: When a thoroughly modern girl finds herself stranded in 1834 London, she must find a way home while navigating the pitfalls of London society, resisting her attraction to a hunky lord, and ultimately having to decide when her true home lies. (You can see the other entries here.)

I got a request to have this week’s six feature the hero, Lord Montagu, and so I thought I’d share this snippet I wrote recently to add into Chapter One. I’d realized I needed to have him be a little more sympathetic and “heroic” because up until now, the reader only knows he has a bad reputation and is known as “the Vicious Viscount.” So in this new addition, he’s just been given a cut direct and has realized that his self-inflicted reputation is no longer working to enact “his plans” — he’s returning with food to Isabelle (whom he just met and danced with) and along the way sees a ‘young lady’ of ‘remarkable intelligence’ but with a ‘shy nature.’ Here’s what he does:

On a whim, he bowed, eliciting several shocked gasps. The young miss turned white. Excellent. Word would quickly spread and put her in the orbit of the young blades of the ton. Surely some worthy gentleman’s sense of protectiveness would be aroused and he would take notice of her.

Like this:

I love reading books in Deep POV and so when I set out to hone my writing, I was gobbling up Deep POV advice. One of the main tenets of Deep POV is to cut out filter words like “she saw,” “she heard,” etc., because in Deep POV you’re writing AS the character, and so of course that’s who noticed, smelled and heard these things.

Well, here’s an embarrassing side effect of being too overzealous that I thought I’d share with you so that when you go through your manuscript and excise these guys you’ll not make the mistake I made.

To walk you through my mistake, here’s the sentences I had during a revision sweep this past summer:

On the verge of suggesting she arise, he saw the dratted door knob turn again

and:

While in this undesirable position on the floor, he heard a board creak in the hallway.

So, here’s me thinking “easy peasey” and I reworked these to:

On the verge of suggesting she arise, he saw the dratted door knob turned again

and:

While in this undesirable position on the floor, he heard a board creaked in the hallway.

All cool, right? Yay, I’d mastered one of the tenets of Deep POV! Woohoo!

Ah, no.

What’s wrong with those sentences? Luckily, a sharp-eyed beta reader found these for me. You see it, too. Yep, it’s a DANGLING PARTICIPLE.

Of course there’s no way the door knob had become sentient and was about to ask the heroine to arise, or that a board was in an awkward position. When my beta reader first pointed them out to me, I stared at them going “how in the world did I even construct these sentences? I know better!” and then it hit me: I’d just taken out the filter words and called it a day.

So I thought I’d share this with you so that you can wield Deep POV principles more wisely than I.

Have you ever used a new writing technique willy nilly and only later realized the consequences? Have you ever accidentally constructed some really funny dangling participles?

Milestone: This was my 100th post!

Like this:

Today is #sixsunday where writers share six sentences from their work. I’ll share a snippet from my time-travel romance WIP tentatively titled MUST LOVE BREECHES. Today is also in the thick of Mardi Gras here in Mobile, so I will try to make the rounds this morning, but might not be able to return comments until after Fat Tuesday

Here’s my new pitch/logline: When a thoroughly modern girl finds herself stranded in 1834 London, she must find a way home while navigating the pitfalls of London society, resisting her attraction to a hunky lord, and ultimately having to decide when her true home lies. (You can see the other entries here.)

I thought I’d pick up exactly where I left off last week, when Isabelle’s friend said a guy was a “breech-ripper.” Seeing the comments, it made me realize I needed to have her react to the term, so here’s my next six:

Isabelle choked on her drink—they’d just been discussing their favorite ‘bodice ripper’ romances. She’d discovered they shared a mutual obsession with guys in period clothes, which had helped propel her through the early stages of the party. Since this was the first time they’d hung out, she treated this moment delicately, afraid to puncture the mood. To have another friend in London would be wonderful.

A sharp elbow in her side caused her drink to flirt with the rim of her glass. “Look sharp,” Anna said, her voice low with just a dollop of teasing, “here comes Andrew.”

Does this work? As always I welcome constructive feedback. Thank you!

To see snippets from others who are participating or to sign up yourself, visit here. Another participant writing time travel is Gayle Ramage.

Thank you to everyone who comes by and comments each week! Have a great Sunday!

Like this:

Jamie Ayres is hosting a first page critique contest to celebrate Heather Birch’s debut novel Halflings. Participants are to post their first 250 words on their blogs, then hop around to everyone else’s to read their entries. Jamie will randomly draw five names to receive a critique from Heather. Does that make sense?

Pitch: When a thoroughly modern girl finds herself stranded in 1834 London, she must find a way home while navigating the pitfalls of London society, resisting her attraction to a hunky lord, and ultimately having to decide when her true home lies.

CHAPTER ONE

A reenactment ball was the perfect setting for romance. Or not.

Isabelle fidgeted in her oddly-shaped, but oh-so-accurate ball gown surrounded by women who’d sacrificed authenticity for sex appeal. It was as if she were a dorky kid again, participating in dress-up day at school when everyone else had magically decided it was lame.

At least her co-worker Anna was with her in this. Like Isabelle’s, her dress was circa 1834. “Hmmm. How about him?” Isabelle asked, eyeing the guy walking past in tight-fitting, buff-colored breeches.

Anna sucked on her olive and plopped the stir stick back into her cocktail. “Oh, yes. A breech-ripper for sure.”

Isabelle choked on her drink—they’d just been discussing their favorite “bodice ripper’ romances. They’d also discovered they shared a mutual obsession with guys in period clothes, which had helped propel her through the early stages of the party. Since this was the first time they’d hung out, she treated this moment delicately, afraid to puncture the mood. To have another friend in London would be wonderful.

A sharp elbow in her side caused her drink to flirt with the rim of her glass. “Look sharp,” Anna said, her voice low with just a dollop of teasing. “Here comes Andrew.”

Isabelle took a gulp of her drink, the champagne fizz tickling her throat and nose. She’d been cultivating a crush on him since she’d started working at the British Museum six months ago. She’d pictured him in period clothes looking resplendent.

You see, we were the first capital of French Louisiana and we also still retain some of our French heritage. In fact, I’m a descendant of an old Creole family.

Why am I telling you this?

Well, mainly to let you know that I will not be posting a Weekend Grab Bag on Saturday, or a Monday Hunk Who Reads. I will, however, be posting my Six Sentence Sunday (got it queued and tweet scheduled) but I might not be able to return comments until after Tuesday, cuz, you know, IT’S CARNIVAL TIME!

Our colors are purple and gold, not purple, green and gold. However, since New Orleans eclipses ours, it’s hard to find decorations to buy that don’t have green in it.

Our king is King Felix III, not King Rex. Last year I was at the coronation of the Queen, and for the first time, an emissary from King Rex came and paid obeisance to our king, acknowledging (finally) that our Mardi Gras is older.

No flashing of boobies for beads (yay!)

We keep the MoonPie makers in Tennessee in business, as that’s one of our traditional throws, unique to Mobile. I remember being at my first Mardi Gras in high school (we’d come to Mobile for a visit) and everyone around me screaming “MoonPie!MoonPie!MoonPie!” as the floats rolled by.

And like any folkway, we have different traditions that have evolved, just like they have. Here we have Joe Cain Day on Sunday, and his Merry Widows (all twenty!) hand out black roses. The oldest parading society here, OOMs, have as their emblem float Folly chasing Death around a broken column (picture at top of blog post), and many other customs.

New Orleans also incorporates their debutante season into Carnival season, but not sure if it’s as extended as ours. The official start of The Season here is the Camellia Ball after Thanksgiving, then the debutantes and their escorts attend parties from that time forward (just like you read in Regency romances!) until they are presented in elaborate court dress on the Saturday before Fat Tuesday to the King and Queen.

Balls!

Are a lot of fun, though this will be the first year since I moved here in 2009, that I will not be attending one (I don’t think– have received last minute invites before. I’ve learned to get dressed in floor-length ball gowns in 15 minutes!) There are only a few for which you can purchase tickets, the rest are invitation only. Many have their own King and Queen and they put on elaborate tableaus before the dancing starts.

Women must wear full-length gowns and men white tie and black tails, known as costume de rigueur. My heroine in MUST LOVE BREECHES, was a debutante in Mobile and so I do have some flashbacks chronicling this little bit of Mobile history.

Like this:

I’m participating in the Is It Getting HOT In Here? Blog Hop in honor of Valentine’s Day. The object is to share a kiss from either a favorite story, from our own experience, or from our own work. I decided to share a scene from my current time travel romance MUST LOVE BREECHES. It’s the first time things get a little heated between them.

In this scene, the heroine, Isabelle (from modern day), is in a carriage with the hero, Lord Montagu (19th century man). She’s just rigged a hasty bandage on his arm from an injury he sustained. She wants to know what happened:

*********

“What I don’t understand,” she said, pausing as his eyes snapped back open, “is how you met with the business end of an iron rose trellis.” She grabbed the last remaining bit of linen and used it to clean the blood off her hands and the seat. She took the lamp and replaced it on its hook by her head. Not knowing what to do with the bloodied linen, she dropped it onto the floor. She pulled her gloves back on, afraid she’d forget them.

“As you are determined to know, the offending object was directly beneath the window and appeared to be an ideal perch for me to make my descent. Unfortunately, I lost my footing and slid down the side of it. My fall was marginally slowed when I went over the edge and one of its points ripped through my coat sleeve to produce this scratch.”

“Scratch? You call that a scratch?”

He shrugged.

“Gah. Men!” She thwacked him in the chest with her small purse.

The hand of his uninjured arm shot out, captured her wrist in his strong fingers and pulled her slightly forward. “Miss Rochon, why do you suddenly have the compulsion to strike me repeatedly?”

“Sorry, habit.”

“Peculiar habit.”

Isabelle’s trapped hand absorbed her whole attention, the small purse dangling in a small arc, the meager light from the lamp setting the sewn-in jewels sparkling. Her wrist moved upward, pulled by Lord Montagu, and she followed its ascent transfixed. Lord Montagu slowly turned her wrist and brushed the underside, right at the pulse point, with his lips. Isabelle shivered despite the barrier of her glove. His well shaped lips, moving just oh so slightly to her wrist; the scar below his lip stretching.

Without thinking, she snatched her wrist out of his grasp.

Her mind caught up to her action. Why, oh why did she always do stupid stuff like that with guys she found attractive? They caused a strange flight response—her curse. What scared her? Someone give me a Rewind button.

Lord Montagu gave a low chuckle.

“Why’d you do that?” Oh my God, had she just asked him that? Could a black hole open below her and suck her in? Please?

“Why do you surmise, Miss Rochon?” His eyes stared straight into hers, awaiting an answer, searching.

“I, uh…” Oh man, black hole? You there?

“My apologies, I have caused you discomfort. That was not my intention.” His eyes shuttered and his shoulders stiffened.

You idiot Isabelle, what does it matter? Here was a chance to let go, without any consequences. Strange that she’d pulled away, though. Usually she was more at ease, more flirtatious, around men when she traveled—they posed no real threat to her, to her life. So, why not in this situation? Also, strange that she recognized what she was doing in time to change it.

She could push past her fear, against her instincts, use this as a ‘teaching moment,’ as her mother used to say. As long as she could keep her own feelings in check and not hurt him.

And besides this wasn’t her real life. Maybe this was a good time to get in some practice. He still looked at her, but he did not appear angry or hurt. Maybe a little confused.

“You took me by surprise is all.” She let her gaze linger over his strong cheekbones and then down to his lips and the scar. Okay, just do it. Her hand reached up to touch his scar. Man, they shook a little bit, but too late to turn back now.

His eyes darkened, his gaze became more intent. The space between them seemed so large, the time it took for her hand to reach him embarrassingly slow. Oh, lord, and she was leaning at an awkward angle toward him. To remain steady, she put her left hand down to support herself.

Finally, the gloved finger of her right hand reached his chin and traced a path over to the cleft in his chin, a feature on any man that made her want to go ‘Rowr!’

He was not doing a thing. He only stared at her. God, where was that black hole? So much for trying to take control, pushing past her fear.

She closed her eyes and let her hand drop. Her breath hitched—his hand had grazed her upper arm. His fingers paused for only a moment as they delicately passed by the inner part of her elbow.

Shivers flitted through her body, erupting as goose bumps on her skin. When had that part of her body become so sensitive?

The light touch of his fingers brushed down her gloved arm and slowly enfolded her hand in his. He turned it slightly, so that her palm faced up, exposing the soft part of her arm. When the warmth of his lips met the tips of her fingers, her eyes snapped open.

Somehow she’d moved closer to him on the seat and as she gazed at his lips, transfixed, he moved his head lower and kissed her palm. His head moved a fraction and he placed another soft, tender kiss on her wrist.

Oh God, she was having trouble finding her breath.

No one had ever done this to her in her life.

And it was so, so, well, so erotic. Who knew?

She couldn’t tear her gaze away as his delectable mouth moved up her arm with soft kisses until it reached the end of the glove, right below her elbow. He paused, his breath caressing her skin. What would he do next? Then his lips touched her bare flesh for the first time, just on the inside of her arm.

Heat seared around her chest and speared downward. Where had all the air in the carriage gone? Her head felt fizzy. The sound of their breathing filled the coach, heightened, joining, wondering. She had the overwhelming urge to push him back against the seat and jump his bones.

Slowly he raised his head. What would those painstakingly tender lips feel like against her own? She moistened her lips with her tongue. It seemed like forever since he’d placed that last kiss on her arm.

The carriage clattered to a stop, jolting her forward slightly. His strong hands grasped her waist, steadying her.

“Miss Rochon?”

She still couldn’t catch her breath, but he seemed calm enough, the bastard. She pushed back to her side of the seat and took deep breaths though her nose, trying hard to look like she was doing nothing like that at all.

Like this:

Today is #sixsunday where writers share six sentences from their work. I’ll share a snippet from my time-travel romance WIP tentatively titled MUST LOVE BREECHES.

Here’s my new pitch/logline: When a thoroughly modern girl finds herself stranded in 1834 London, she must find a way home while navigating the pitfalls of London society, resisting her attraction to a hunky lord, and ultimately having to decide when her true home lies. (You can see the other entries here.)

Okay, a couple of week’s back I shared the new first opening lines and below is taking the last line in that and reworking it to show their obsession with guys in breeches, not tell. I wanted to get y’all’s opinion. I had one critiquer tell me they thought this was a bit gross/crass, but I wasn’t sure if it was just her sensibilities, or if it really was just, well, gross. Setup: they are at a reenactment ball set in 1834.

At least her co-worker Anna was with her in this. Like Isabelle’s, her dress was circa 1834. “Hmmm, how about him?” Isabelle asked, eyeing the guy walking past in tight-fitting, buff-colored breeches.

Anna sucked on her olive and plopped the stir stick back into her cocktail. “Oh, yes, a breech-ripper for sure.”

Since this is the third and fourth paragraph, I don’t want to get her characterization wrong. To see snippets from others who are participating or to sign up yourself, visit here. Other time-travel SSS writers: Gayle Ramage

Thank you to everyone who comes by and comments each week! Have a great Sunday!

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